-Rework the 3/5 move - Either up it to 4/6, or she needs additional ways to trigger out of action movement - between a rock is not reliable enough.
-2" melee - she is supposed to be a model that gets stuck in and controls
-2/3 base defensive stats
2 / 3 of these changes would make her a model that could see the 10 for some. 3 / 3 and she would be fighting hard for one of those spots.

Ballista all the way. Obulus's defensive tech matter's little to a team that can put 11 damage per turn downfield at range and can KD the ball off of him from range. Additionally, your team is tanky enough to be pretty hard for Mort's to grind through, AND you are better goal scorers. Additionally, between Velocity, Colossus, and Hoist (true repping burrow or acrobatics), all of your strikers can get around unpredictable movement.

Hi all,
Wanted to share one of the kicking strategies I have been using with my blacksmiths that I have found to be quite effective. It is a very aggressive, explosive style of play. Note, I'm not claiming that I am necessarily the first to think of this - it's pretty straightforward - but I think it is good and worth sharing! My go to lineup for this has been: Ferrite (c), Iron, Hearth, Alloy, Furnace, Cast. That doesn't mean it couldn't work with some changes. The key models are Ferrite as captain, iron, hearth, and alloy. The last two spots are more flexible.
The general setup is as follows:
Alloy kicking.
Hearth next to Alloy. Furnace nearby iron. Iron next. Ferrite on the wing, but still relatively close to the center. Ideally you want Ferrite within 6" of as many models on your team as possible - certainly Alloy, Iron at minimum. On the other side of alloy, hearth and cast (or cinder).
Alloy advances and kicks - no specific goals with the kickoff, do whatever kind of kick seems the best - make sure alloy is within 6" of hearth at the end of his kick off advance.
Allocation - 4 on Alloy and Iron, 2 on hearth, 1 on furnace. Last influence is flexible - can put it on hearth or ferrite.
First activation - Ferrite legendaries, advances, Get Over Here on Iron to position him up to 6" forward. If she has 1 on her, she can acrobatics towards the wing a bit to spread out for positioning for later turns. Next activations hearth buffs iron with 2" melee, instructs either iron or alloy depending on board state, advances 6"(should be within legendary). Furnace tools up iron, advances to within 1" of either Iron or Alloy if either of them is threatened by an opponents' model (for sentinel - obviously not needed vs. a ranged gunline team).
Last 2 activations you send Alloy and Iron zooming across the board. Order depends on board state. If your opponent kills the ball from Alloy, but also makes it so they can't score that turn, then you can send in Alloy to get dirty knives off, do some damage and generate momentum. If they keep it live for them to score, you can hold alloy back last activation as basically a guaranteed snapback goal. Tooled up, 2" melee Iron threatens 10" before impetus from the up to 6" he already dodged up previously. You can either use Impetus to get him into someone holding the ball and go for the goal, or pick a vulnerable target and try to take them out or generate a bunch of damage and momentum to carry you into turn 2. Tooled up Iron is pretty likely to do around 11-12 damage vs. a 4/1 model, and really starts to excel against 3/1 or other lower defensive stat combinations.
The ideal outcome of this first turn setup is a goal and getting a takeout ready for top of 2. However, even in the worst case you should be able to position aggressively, generate a bunch of momentum, get damage out, and threaten the ball. The best part is that both Iron (through Ferrite) and Alloy have built in yo-yo mechanics - you can pull Iron out turn 2 if he is getting into a bad position either before or after he activates, and alloy naturally is bouncing in, out, and around the scrum with back to the shadows.

Blacksmiths are certainly competitively viable. As to where they are exactly...I think the answer it is it is too early to tell. The team has so many abilities, and positional synergies, and exaggerated strengths and weaknesses. I have played probably 12 or so games since the box 2 SCUS release, and I am still working out a lot of the depth of strategies the team can adopt. The biggest thing that would be potentially preventing them from being top tier is that they are hugely resource strained as a team.

They shouldnt touch him simply by looking at competitive events. He is strong, but not oppressive (and Hammer has very good game into him sooooo). I can't speak for how he plays into newer players. I can't imagine its worse than getting got by obulus.

Yeah, unfortunately Steamforged is making the wrong fix on this one. Don't fix the error, just fix the rest of the document so that it clearly supports roll for kick/receive before blind pick....like every single reasonable person who plays the game has wanted since the change took place.

Agree 100% on the respecting everyone's opinions on the manner, including yours
Here are some counter points from what I have gathered talking to people both online and up and down the eastern US seaboard.
- Lining up on a single line is much less complicated than multiple lines/zones of deployment. Additionally, it creates additional crucial decision points before the game as what model can deploy where. This isn't necessarily a negative - more decision points can be good for a competitive game - that said it certainly is less user friendly.
- Potentially. That said, it can introduce 1st turn "swinginess" that can be frustrating to be on the receiving end of. I think there is certainly varied opinions on the "dreary boringness" of the first turn - I know that I personally find the positional aspects of the first turn to be very interesting. It is the opening to the chess game, you are developing your pieces. And you certainly can go aggressive (with almost all guilds).
- It allows for a lot more uninteractive first activations - you can't put any potentially vulnerable model within threat of a strong beater or risk getting 1 rounded. And since there isn't momentum on the first turn, it can create uninteractive situations.
- And other models that were balanced for traditional deployment become potentially unbalanced with the deployment rules.
You certainly should feel like you and your meta can play with those rules. Further, I think Steamforged should officially codify support of the pitch formations as an alternative event type (in the MFA document). I personally would not be a fan of those rules becoming a norm in competitive play, and my (completely anecdotal) experience is that a significant number of players feel similarly.

I can sympathize with that, however the innate movement and stats of models in the game are designed around the concept of separated teams. The formations, while interesting in concept, ultimately add to the game an additional bar you have to overcome as a player to be able to succeed in your games. It widens the gap between beginner, intermediate, and experienced player, and not due to increased tactical or strategic depth, but rather because there are more ways in which one player can create an uninteractive and negative play experience for their opponent.

My results with lucky have been enormously positive. He should be in the 10 in my opinion. He brings a little bit of everything - decent goal threat and ball retrieval, solid mom damage, good mobility, inf and mom efficiency. Specifically hammer loves that he can contribute a free inf to steal if needed (and going 2nd).
There isn't anything he specifically does into the butcher matchup as they aren't a condition heavy team, that said he's s solid all rounder. I would be deciding between him and tower as a 6th slot in a hammer lineup vs them (the others being hammer, marbles, brick, mallet, flint). Into fish, it again depends. Clearing kds into corsair once the scrum forms is pretty nice. Other than that he can do pretty solid damage if set up, which is nice vs fish. Additionally, his raise the stakes can get him out of trouble if he is stuck in melee with a bunch of 2" melee.
In general in hammer, I have used him in place of either flint or tower, depending on what I need for a given matchup. As for results, I have 1 tournament loss since the errata, and the east coast us is full of skilled players, and that was with honor and lucky wasn't in it, so take that for what it is worth.

Yo, Ron, chill bro. There can be a discussion without putting others down for having different opinions. For example, I would disagree with your statement that bringing minx is little risk, as she has only 12 boxes and her efficiency is controllable. Doesn't mean I don't think she is good.
And guess what, I don't rate minx or mist more highly than just taking another guild player right now in masons.
;)